I was fortunate enough to be able to be at the anniversary concert at St Maximin celebrating 50 years since Michel Chapuis first played there, 50 years of Pierre Bardon's holding of the post of Organist Titulaire and some 25 years since the instrument was restored.

At exactly two minutes into the Bonne Anniversaire, something went "BOOM" Door slamming shut

Brilliant improvisation though...

EricKB7DQH

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The objective is to reach human immortality—that is, to create things which are necessary to mankind, necessary to the purpose of the existence of mankind, and which have become the fruit that drives the creation of a higher state of mankind than ever existed before."

I was fortunate enough to be able to be at the anniversary concert at St Maximin celebrating 50 years since Michel Chapuis first played there, 50 years of Pierre Bardon's holding of the post of Organist Titulaire and some 25 years since the instrument was restored.

Still with Mendelssohn, I wonder if you have seen/heard the video + audio recording made by Daniel Roth with his two assistants registering the the perormance, from the console of Saint-Sulpice.

The assistant nearest the camera is Roth's son. I sensed a real warmth between Daniel Roth and these two assisting.

The performance is an arrangement of Prelude and Fugue in E minor for piano, Mendelssohn, transcribed to organ by Nichlas Kynaston.

Daniel Roth really lets the C-C have its head and the Fugue in particular showing off the exiciting transition up to the Tutti, and the wonderfully filthy and obscene Pedal Bombardes. A powerful sound in anyones book and the perfect Cavaille-Coll in mine.

This, to my ears, is a very wonderful sound, and enough to blow your roof in !! especially if you listen on high definition headphones.

I have a strong bias to the instruments of Henry Willis 1st to Henry Willis 3rd - especailly the big job in St Paul's Cathedral London, before Mander.

But the Saint-Sulpice organ is now testing that loyalty. Willis 1 of course, was no stranger to that french upstart, Cavaille-Coll